


oil spill

by lilantis



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage, First Kiss, Ishbal | Ishval, Post-Canon, Post-Promised Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29833107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilantis/pseuds/lilantis
Summary: This is not the kiss of two newlyweds from East City who met at university, who enjoy going to the market together on Sundays and cozy nights in front of the fire in their little apartment, who might start trying for a baby soon, who live the life Riza might have once dreamed of as a little girl. This is filled with the memories of burns and blood and promises that run as deep as hell. It’s every nightmare and code word and bullet-hole and scar. It tastes like an overwhelming ache; the impending lack of a future, the yearning for something impossible, the equivalent exchange they’ve subjected themselves to in order to make things right.-or, an undercover kiss.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51





	oil spill

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually part of a much longer fic i intend to write one day about roy and riza going undercover as a married couple in ishval, so that's the context here. i'm not sure if this exact scene would actually make it in the final cut of that, but it came to me one morning and i ended up really liking it so i figured i'd post it because it'll be ages until the rest of the fic actually comes together.
> 
> i've pretty blatantly coded ishvalans as jews, purely because that is what i'm familiar with so i felt comfortable doing it justice, but i think ishval is/can be representative of many cultures that have been the target of genocide.
> 
> also, this scene is very obviously inspired by an iconic scene in one of my favorite rom coms of all time! but i wont spoil it until after you've read ;) 
> 
> if you see a typo no you didnt <3

Dinner is a lively affair, filled to the brim with laughter and the clink of wine glasses and the inner warmth of sharing a meal. They’re practically stuffed to the brim with all sorts of food, the small rectangular table creaking under the weight of the feast that rests upon it. Plates of lamb, rice, bread, vegetables, and plenty of other foods Riza has never even heard of sit nearly empty before them as Yosef and Sarah animatedly retell some old story about their honeymoon decades ago. Riza only catches parts of it, hazy as her mind has become from the several glasses of red wine she’s uncharacteristically consumed, and she’s only vaguely aware of Roy’s arm around the back of her chair, hovering close enough to her shoulders to feel the warmth of his skin. It’s something about their wedding night going horribly and embarrassingly wrong due to a distinct lack of experience, and a midnight trip to the apothecary, disguised in hoods, for a remedy. Riza has the fleeting thought that this conversation is dipping quickly into dangerous territory that may very well test the limits of their cover (and their composure), but can’t find it in herself to care with the way Yosef’s eyes shine with equal parts mischief and love as he gazes at his wife. She talks with her hands in that dramatic way that older women do, her voice loud and clear and confident, and her husband does not even notice when she shifts to blatantly teasing him for his performance that night so many years ago. Hadassah and her wife, Noelle, seated to their left, smile between sips of wine, the glasses pressed to their lips and catching the pearls of laughter that spill out. Hadassah asks some teasing question about how he’s kept ahold of Sarah for so long after such a debacle, and they all look expectantly at Yosef for a rebuttal.

His eyes haven’t left his wife’s face, and when she finally turns to him, her smile glowing with fondness, he doesn’t answer. Instead, he raises a soft, wrinkled hand to the curve of her jaw and kisses her, languid and intentional. Riza can’t help but blush, but Hadassah laughs freely and when Yosef pulls away he’s smug, and his eyes glitter once again with that old mischief as Sarah playfully smacks him on the upper arm for the display.

“That,” he begins, his accent thick and voice deep, “is the secret to a long and happy marriage,” He lifts up his glass to the room in something almost like a toast before taking another sip, “It’s all about the kiss. You can figure out the rest as you go.”

Riza’s cheeks are surely bright red at this point, and Roy’s arm feels a little bit more tense against her shoulders than it did a moment ago. 

Noelle rolls her eyes with a smile, “That’s the best you can do, old man?” she says, grabbing a fistful of her wifes’ shirt in her hand and tugging her face to hers. Their kiss is no less passionate but far more aggressive, and when they both start giggling mid-makeout at the ridiculousness of it all, the others laugh with them. Riza shrinks a little deeper into her seat at the bold display, something that feels a little like shame and even more like bitterness seeping into her gut. 

“I hope your neighbors have thick walls, for their sake,” Sarah says with a raised eyebrow, and receives a flick of rice pilaf in her direction from Hadassah’s fork in response, dodged easily with a full and melodious laugh. 

Riza should have anticipated it, really, when the two older couples turn to her and Roy expectantly. Yosef has an eyebrow raised, while Noelle seems to smirk at Riza’s blush, and she suddenly feels frozen to the spot.

“Well?” Yosef says, drawing the syllables out for effect. He glances knowingly at his wife, before his gaze locks onto Roy’s next to her head, “Let’s see what you’ve got. Couple of newlyweds ought to have us old codgers beat by a mile and a half,” His tone is warm and light but sends an unpleasant jolt of adrenaline down Riza’s spine. 

She barely hears Hadassah’s, “Old? Speak for yourself, zeyde!” followed by more laughter. 

She doesn’t dare look at Roy, too afraid of what she’d see in his eyes if she did, but he feels her tension nonetheless (as he always does) and attempts to deflect.

“We got our fill this morning, actually.”

His voice is dangerously low, gritty with the wine and matching in tone to the darkness of the little kitchen, and Riza has to physically suppress a shiver at his words so close to her ear. 

Yosef does give a little, amused laugh, but shakes his head in disapproval, “You’ll never keep a woman like her with that attitude, boy, how’s she supposed to know you love her if you won’t even kiss’er?”

Riza’s cheeks are on fire now, she knows, redness spreading down to her chest and nerves erupting in her stomach. She shouldn’t be surprised, really. They’ve done undercover missions for years. They both know what they sometimes entail - a seat in his lap at a party, a fake drunken stumble into his arms, and too many staged fights to count, but this feels different. Maybe it’s because everything feels different, now, after those weeks in the hospital by each other's side each night, sharing in their nightmares and despair. How she would creep into his bed when the vision of her bleeding out at his feet refused to release him and the sight of her alive couldn’t reach him and touch was the only way to say I’m alive. Or maybe it’s because these people are not the typical mark, some crime boss with a thing for blondes who she has no problem luring into a back room with the sway of her hips only to lock him in cuffs before he can reach for her waist. She owes these people, with their red eyes that look at her with such kindness, everything. All of her, all of the truth, and to lie to them feels like just another sin ticked off her long list of transgressions. 

Roy is annoyed, now. She can feel his rising response to the challenge in the tension of his presence next to her, and she prays to nothing that he will keep his cool.

He does, to her surprise, with a roll of his eyes and a muttered fine and a swift, brief kiss to her cheek, right below her cheekbone. It lasts little more than a moment but sends a tendril of something that feels like electricity through her entire body, right down to the tips of her toes. 

She plays the part and smiles, softly and adoringly at him, only half-acting. 

Hadassah rolls her eyes, and waves the kiss off like the pathetic attempt to get them off their backs that it was, “I didn’t have you pegged as a shy one, goy,” and when she looks at him, her smile is dangerous, but her gaze shifts to Riza, instead, “Since your husband obviously can’t deliver, maybe you should pay my wife and I a visit sometime, Riza.” 

Yosef gives a delighted, throaty laugh, and Noelle nudges her wife in reprimand, but Hadassah is looking at Roy again, smug as she tilts her head back for another sip of wine but does not break his gaze.

Riza’s mind is so occupied with finding an appropriately playful but firm rebuke that doesn’t make them too suspicious, about Amestrians being modest or something of the sort, that she doesn’t feel the challenge ripple through Roy beside her and the way he coils up before he’s about to do something impulsive. 

She’s opening her mouth to say something but before the words can come out, Roy’s hand is wrapped around the back of her neck and his mouth is on hers. 

Her mind goes completely blank and she thinks that if it were physically possible to melt, she would already be a puddle on the floor. They have always been a package deal, inseparable parts of the same whole, but now there is no delineation between where she ends and he begins. The edges between them blur and she finds it difficult to believe she will ever be capable of re-drawing them. The rest of the room, Yosef’s low, suggestive whistle and Hadassah’s victorious laugh, are lost to her. There is nothing except the way his hand curls from the back of her neck to cup her face, and the way his thumb strokes the underside of her jaw, and how his lips are firm and demanding on hers, like a command. 

And she obeys it, of course, though there is no reluctance and no acting in the way she kisses him back with the force of a dam built over a decade finally cracking and flooding the tiny space between them until they are submerged fully and destined to drown. This is not the kiss of newlyweds, it’s entirely Roy and somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that if the others weren’t already suspicious of them, they will be now, for this kiss speaks of far too much desperation to be that of Elizabeth and Robert. This is not the kiss of two newlyweds from East City who met at university, who enjoy going to the market together on Sundays and cozy nights in front of the fire in their little apartment, who might start trying for a baby soon, who live the life Riza might have once dreamed of as a little girl. This is filled with the memories of burns and blood and promises that run as deep as hell. It’s every nightmare and code word and bullet-hole and scar. It tastes like an overwhelming ache; the impending lack of a future, the yearning for something impossible, the equivalent exchange they’ve subjected themselves to in order to make things right. 

Her hands grab onto his shirt, nails scraping at his chest as her fingers curl. He is a fire and she is the smoke that curls around it, already burnt to ash, and then his tongue brushes just barely against her lower lip and she is sure that there is no coming back from this, but as quickly as it began it abruptly ends. He pulls away fast, ripping them apart as if it needed to be done quickly or else it would have been too painful. His hand stays on her jaw for a moment too long and hers on his chest and they release each other slowly, finger by finger as he stares at her with such intensity and catharsis that it makes her stomach flip so hard it almost feels like it’s been struck.

Hadassah’s low chuckle is what finally snaps her out of it, the sound reverberating off of the strange moment hard enough to break it. “Well, I stand corrected,” she says with a raised glass in Roy’s direction. She looks at Yosef, then back to them, “Forget about my neighbors. I feel bad for poor Miriam with you two under her roof,”

Roy leans back in his chair, his arm going over the back of hers once again but this time it rests confidently upon her upper back and his fingers trace little circles on her shoulder, pushing up against her short sleeve to get access to the skin underneath. He props a knee up on his other leg, and she doesn’t have to look at him (can’t, without blushing) to know he’s infuriatingly smug right now and that absolutely none of it is an act. 

“Good thing her hearing has gone to shit, huh?” He responds with a wink, and this time Riza actually does smack his side for that comment, but he only laughs harder and catches her hand with the one that isn’t currently rubbing infuriatingly relaxing circles on her shoulder, lacing their fingers together so that she can’t pull away. 

He smiles at her, and it is real and true and fully him, and she knows that there is no chance of that dam between them ever being reconstructed, for the remnants of it have been completely washed away. But she also considers, as his eyes soften in a half-assed apology but his giddy, indulgent smile remains, that perhaps drowning would not be so terrible after all.

**Author's Note:**

> the movie that inspired this is leap year with amy adams! PLEASE watch it if you haven't its seriously fantastic. 
> 
> im now realizing both of my posted royai fics are kiss one-shots. guess i have a type. i promise there is more variety in the works lmao
> 
> hope you enjoyed and fingers crossed that one day i'll actually write the entire background fic to this scene <3


End file.
